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Christianity in Western Europe was severely challenged by a number of cultural factors during the darkest of the dark ages in Western Europe, from about 840 to around 1000. While the transformation of Roman civilization had begun in the west several centuries earlier and a new European civilization would eventually arise from the ruins, this time frame, from 840 to 1000, represents the darkness before the first light of dawn. A large section of Western Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries occupies the lowest point on the graph of civilized achievement since before the expansion of Roman civilization into the area. The characteristics of this period include political impotence, disunity, decimating civil war, and savage raids penetrating and lacerating Europe from three external sources. Couple this with the near disappearance of the market and monetary systems north of the Alps, and the sinking of the population deeply into illiteracy with only sporadic expressions of minimal civilized behavior to be seen in a few sheltered niches.
The stress these conditions placed on Christian institutions and teachings are in many details still visible in the character of present day Christianity in Western Europe. It is no exaggeration to say that Christian institutions during this period were only ever so slightly more civilized than the rest of society. But, in the last analysis, it was largely owing to that slight superiority that Europeans were able to survive the ninth and tenth centuries dark age and by the beginning of the eleventh century to begin to rebuild their civilization. That rebuilding began based on what little knowledge of higher culture surviving Christian institutions had preserved.
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The period of time covered here includes one of the darkest and most terrifying periods in European history. Ironically, it follows unexpectedly on the heals of the Carolingian achievement with all its promise. Not since the fifth century had nearly the whole of Western Europe been subjected to such disruptive and destructive forces. The most obvious characteristic of the period is the geographic fragmentation of ruling power. This progressive process does not proceed everywhere at once nor to the same degree in all regions.
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The great kingdom of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious was broken up among the three surviving sons at the death of Louis the Pious in 840. In 843 at the Treaty of Verdun the three heirs temporarily settled their respective claims. The histories of the three areas remain entangled through most of the ninth century.
One of the three, Lothair I, carried the imperial title and ruled what was the middle section of the Frankish realm which historians sometimes call Lotharingia. It included all Italy and a generous strip of territory through the middle of Europe connecting Provence on the French Riviera beside northern Italy northward through eastern France to the Netherlands at the mouth of the Rhine. At Lothair's death in 855 Lotharingia was divided into three segments each ruled by one of his sons. In 870 the Lotharingian line lost the northern third of its territory with it being divided more or less equally between the other two royal lines descending from Louis the Pious.
Political chaos welled up in Italy and southeastern France after 875 and the death of Emperor Louis II (the end of Lothair I's line). Warlords ceaselessly struggled with one another to the detriment of peace and prosperity. Even the prestige and authority of the Imperial crown was denigrated as it passed through the hands of more than a half-a-dozen individuals powerless to take advantage of its potential. Finally after Berengar II of Friuli laid claim to the title in 915 it was ignored for the next half century as the localized warlords continued their competitive struggles.
Lothair I's brothers, respectively, ruled the other thirds of the Carolingian realm after 840. Louis the German ruled the eastern third sometimes called "Alemannia", or Germany. During Louis' reign the great regional or tribal duchies of Germany began to emerge at the expense of the king's sovereignty. To complicate matters further, Louis also had three surviving sons who divided Alemannia among themselves after 876. When the last Carolingian descendant of Louis the German died in 911 the Dukes chose the Duke of Franconia, one of their own number, to be king. When he died without a surviving heir in 918 the Dukes selected Henry the Fowler the Duke of Saxony. Henry's descendants constitute the Saxon dynasty that ruled Germany with comparative effectiveness until the early eleventh century.
Charles the Bald, the youngest of Louis the Pious' sons and half-brother of Lothair I and Louis the German, ruled the western third of the Carolingian realm known as "Carolingia". It was that part of France west of Lotharingia with an eastern boundary roughly from the upper Meuse river in the north to the Rhone-Saone river system in the south. Charles had a single son survive him in 877 and two young grandsons survive their father in 879. The last Carolingian heir of Charles the Bald died in 978. However, the breakdown in effective sovereignty that would eventually infect the whole of Europe began first of all in northeast Carolingia during the reign of Charles the Bald. He lost effective control over three-fourths of his kingdom to warlords many of whom were related to the Carolingian family. This breakdown was exacerbated by the Viking depredations from the north and Saracen attacks from the south. Charles' heirs never regained the sovereignty so when Hugh Capet accepted the royal title in 978, there was no effective power or landed wealth attached to it. Hugh and his descendants survived as the kings of France for the next several generations because they were not a serious threat to the warlords who had the real power.
When a kingdom is unified it can defend itself against outside forces that would invade and do harm. Once that kingdom divides into dozens of kingdoms there are ever so many more boundaries to defend. Consequently, one of the aspects of the fragmentation of ruling power was the increase in costly military activity. Unfortunately, there is little security gained for all this increased attention to military activity. Ironically sad to point out, the wars among the fragment kingdoms were almost as destructive as those invasions by outsiders.
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The second most obvious characteristic of this period from 840 to 1000 was the disruption inflicted on Western Europe by violent invading forces of the Saracens, the Vikings, and the Magyars. This produced an enormous degree of destruction in certain regions and contributed to the mixing and relocation of large numbers of refugees.
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Italy's situation during this time between 840 and 1000 was very turbulent. Saracen attacks on south Italy beginning while Charlemagne was still alive resulted in the conquest of all Byzantine Italy by 841. The Saracens were Muslims from northwestern Africa. They pushed and raided further north. Monte Casino, the famous monastery, was sacked and burned. The suburbs of Rome were likewise sacked and burned in 846. Carolingian Emperor Louis II (Lothair's son) campaigned against the Saracens with some success but they were tenacious. After Louis II's death in 875 the Saracens shifted their attacks to the cities along the west coast and the Italian Riviera from Naples to Genoa. These raids continued into the tenth century even after 916 when Pope John X forced the Saracens to give up their stronghold at Garigliano on the Liri River seventy-five miles south of Rome. The Byzantine Empire was equally successful reconquering their south Italian Provinces. They recaptured Bari, the capital of the province of Apulia, by 871 and drove the Saracens out of Byzantine Italy by 880. But continued vigilance was necessary to guard the western and southern coasts for over a century.
The Magyars, originally tent-dwelling nomads from western Russia who migrated into and settled in the heart of Hungary on the middle Danube and Theiss valleys in 895, promptly took up slaving expeditions to the West. They avoided most fortified places and picked on defenseless villages. Eventually they attacked and sacked several fortified cities such as Strasbourg on the Rhine. As they moved through the country-side with its scattered villages, they killed every living thing they did not take as a slave; they burned the villages, uprooted vineyards, destroyed water mills, burned crops, burned farm implements and killed all draft animals. They took only women of childbearing age with their children as slaves. No male above the age of 13 or 14 years was taken or left alive. The accumulation of women and children were herded on foot back to ports on the Black Sea or Caspian Sea and sold. Thirteen of their wagon-train slaving expeditions focused on the towns of Lombardy in north Italy between 899 and 954. In 922 a raid reached the Apulian province in the south. In 924 they were in the vicinity of Rome, in 928 around Florence. In 937 the raiders wintered in central Italy before returning home. In 947 the raid penetrated all the way to Tarentum (modern Otranto).
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The Viking raids originating in Norway and Denmark continued on the north coast of France in the period from 840 to 900 when priorities shifted to settlement. Towns along the northern French rivers like Rouen on the River Seine (841) Quentovic a trading town on the Rhine River(842), Nantes on the Loire River (842, 853), Toulouse on the Garonne River (844), and Paris on the Seine River (845, 851, 861). "Danegelds" were collected at least twelve times in Carolingia between 845 and 926. Nantes and several other cities and a few monasteries were burnt to the ground because they refused or were unable to pay. In 851 Charles the Bald paid a Danegeld of 7000 pounds of silver for the relief of Paris.
The Vikings, Bjorn Ironside and Hastein, camped on the Seine in 856-57, moved on to pillage places in Muslim Spain and north Africa, entered the Mediterranean and struck the Balearic Islands and then the Riviera coast of Spain, France and Italy. They struck Nimes and Valence 100 miles inland on the Rhone River (because the Saracen raids beginning in 838 in this area had effectively depopulated and impoverished the area closer to the Mediterranean), sacked Pisa and Luna, etc. on the west coast of Italy. It is speculated they went all the way to Constantinople before turning back.
After 878 a new wave of Scandinavian based raids struck France and the Netherlands for the next fourteen years. Paris, Cologne, Aachen, Trier, Liege, Rouen, Soisson, Beyeaux, and St. Lo, among others, experienced attacks, threats and sackings. Carolingian Emperor Charles the Fat who ruled France between 884 and 887 made no effective resistance; indeed, he sold the raiders supplies and weapons to use against his own people. The last attack on Paris was in 889 when the local warlord, Odo, paid them to leave.
In 891 the Saracens (Muslims from northwest Africa) established themselves in the mountain stronghold of Fraxinetum (La Garde Freinet) in mountainous Provence (extreme southeast France). These Saracens raided the Alps passes for booty and slaves. Most prominent personages captured were held for ransom. This terror continued until Fraxinetum was finally taken in 973.
Central, eastern, and southern France were further subject to Magyar wagon train slaving raids beginning in 911 when they raided through south central France. In 917 they reached Metz, in 919 they were on the middle Rhine and the upper Seine and Loire valleys in central France. In 924 they pillaged across central France into Aquitaine in the southwest. In 937 they reached Orleans on the Loire. In 954 they hit Metz and Cologne and then swept south through France and into northern Italy.
The French territory beside the English Channel was the area where the Norse settled and established a strong presence beginning c. 911. The area has since been referred to as Normandy. The first Norman duke was Robert I, 911-931. The Norman Dukes proved to be more efficient in governing their region than neighboring French Dukes. Robert's successors in the tenth century were William I, Longsword (931-942), and Richard I, the Fearless (942-996).
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The Magyar raids were unrelenting from 899 to 955, and their heaviest impact was on southern Germany, between the Danube and the Alps Mountains. The Duchy of Bavaria saw twelve raids in all. Occasionally they pushed to the north. Thuringia and Saxony saw them in 908, 915 and 917. Attempts to invade Saxony in 933 and 938 were repulsed by the Saxon Duke and Alemannian King Henry the Fowler. It was Henry's son and successor, King Otto I, who began in 948 to beat them back. He campaigned into their home campground in the Theiss valley in 950, but although it depleted their numbers it failed to stop them. Finally in 955 Otto I caught up with the better part of the remaining Magyars on a raid near Augsburg on the Lech River and soundly defeated them. Thus ended the Magyar threat to the West. The remaining Magyars settled as the ruling aristocracy in Hungary and were soon converted to Christianity. Their king Vaik took the Christian name Stephen I, and his rule was recognized by the Pope in 1000.
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We have glanced at the fragmentation of Europe from the standpoint of the Carolingian dynasty. We observe here the crumbling of royal sovereignty from the standpoint of the people. First royal power splinters into various functions (military, judicial, legislative, financial), each being exercised independently and without any central coordination by the rebellious, now autonomous governmental officials and their heirs. Finally all the aspects of royal sovereignty end as the possession of hundreds of individuals who exercise that autonomous sovereignty over tiny regions, some so small they represented basically the villages pertaining to a single seigneur family.
When the head of a seigneur family found himself exercising all the powers of government (military, judicial, legislative, and economic) within the villages where his family owned the dominant amount of land, it was an invitation to tyranny. The result, more often than not, was the subjugation of the free farmers into what may be termed quasi-serfdom, a status easily and often confused with the status of the true serf. How could a free individual be reduced to quasi-slavery? Society at this time recognized as customary, that is, as legally binding, any transaction which was publicly witnessed and remembered. In other words if a free farmer "once upon a time" submitted, for whatever reason, to the customs that pertained to true serfs, that formerly free farmer and all his heirs must henceforth submit to those disabilities customary for a true serf.
Once we see the heads of certain very wealthy seigneur families exercising all the powers of sovereign government over their personally owned lands and the people resident on those lands, we begin to see interstate cooperation and alliances among these sovereign seigneurs. In the absence of security for their private property these seigneurs found ways of cooperating in their own defense. This was the impetus for the development of one of the least understood of Medieval phenomena.
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Here we must briefly discuss the curious institution accurately called vassalage or lordship but frequently obscured almost beyond recognition by being labeled "feudalism". The present generation of students has been taught "feudalism" from the time they were in gradeschool; unfortunately, the prevailing, simplistic, supposedly one-size-fits-all definition obscures the truth by putting a mythical caricature in its place. "Feudalism" is a modern synthetic construct originating with nineteenth and twentieth century social scientists and political theorists engaged in the comparative study of various types of socio-political structure. While some of the ingredients of the construct appear clearly in the historical evidence from any one of a number of places and times, evidence for other ingredients is only found at different times and places. Hence, any time you label something as evidence of "feudalism" you have to deal with an overly complex theoretical construct that assumes things not in the particular evidence being examined. I doubt there is evidence from any single place and time that supports "feudalism" in all its assumed dimensions and functions.
As vassalage began to emerge during the ninth and tenth century crisis it combined a number of different customary contractual concepts from the Roman legal system, barbarian warrior customs and the socio-economic customs of seigneurialism all of which had been around a very long time. Some of these began occasionally to be combined for military and governmental purposes already in the fifth and following centuries. While there is no legal or formal definition of vassalage before the twelfth century we begin to see in the attested actions of certain people a partial and informal syntheses pointing in that direction in some parts of Europe by the late ninth and early tenth centuries.
At base vassalage appears to be a life-term contract or commitment between two individuals, a vassal and a lord. The lord is the one in charge, the commander, the protector, and the provider, while the vassal is the one serving and obeying in ways determined by prevailing custom. The driving purpose is the effective protection of improved property. Many seigneurial families owned more lands than they could personally occupy and protect. They needed extra manpower for protection. The head of one of the more powerful seigneur families could enter into a number of these contracts with other less powerful seigneurs who were already his neighbors and who became his vassals. These vassals individually agreed to give him counsel in matters pertaining to all the vassals committed to this lord as a group and to follow the lord out of the immediate area into battle for no more than a customary total of forty days a year. Typically these vassals owned tracts of land in proximity to isolated outlying tracts of the lord's land. The vassals primary obligation was the protection and supervision of a part of his lord's property.
To provide upkeep for his vassals the lord must assign to each of them a geographically defined portion of his seigneurial rights. This empowers the vassal to exercise landlord rights in his lord's stead over a certain portion of the lord's lands that will continue to be farmed by the same resident villagers as before. Both the tract of land and the income from the land produced by the villagers are called the "fief". The lord still "owns" the fief, but the vassal gets to protect it and live from it, perhaps even live on it, as if he were its owner. Don't make the common error of assuming that vassals are farm laborers. Indeed, in this period the majority of vassals and lords are from landowning families of the wealthiest, or seigneurial, rank.
At some point in the late tenth or early eleventh century these lifetime contracts became hereditary and if the vassal had no male heir the lord then acted as protector of the widow or female heir of his deceased vassal. The lord in this example, may well have, in the meantime, entered into other contracts in which he, himself is the vassal of other even more powerful individuals each of whom has assigned him a fief from their lands. Since he really doesn't need the additional landlord's rights to care for his immediate family, he enters into more contracts as a lord granting fiefs to additional vassals. (For a somewhat more detailed essay on this development click here.
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The third characteristic of this time period was the result of the two previous characteristics. The political fragmentation combined with the demographic upheaval produced by the repeated wars and invasions seriously challenged certain aspects of the economy. In some parts of Europe the circulation of money and of the urban dwelling merchants disappeared for a time. Staple markets were no longer needed in several regions where urban populations that depended on them no longer remained. Merchants apparently found the uncertainty and violence they met in the cross-country trek from market to market too much to risk. Please understand, I am not saying that there were no staple markets, urban settlements, traveling merchants or circulating currencies anywhere in Europe.
Among the activities that were bankrupted by the break down of trade in the ninth century were those rural centers of craft production that employed slaves. With access to markets denied, these slaves could no longer support themselves nor profit their owner with their craft. Neither was there any market in Western Europe for slaves. The seigneur families that owned these slaves assigned each of the slaves and his dependents a parcel of land and partially freed them so that they could make a living. Now the slave was a craftsman part time and a farmer part time, and his heirs would inherit this semi-servitude. These heirs were the true serfs (from Latin servus, slave, servant). True serfs became a widely scattered and not very numerous minority among the mostly free villagers during this period.
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As the disruption of royal power progressed during the ninth and tenth centuries beginning in northeastern France the sovereign powers of the ban were usurped by various dukes and lower ranked officials including royally appointed advocates and eventually even powerful seigneurs. These usurpations enabled these powerful local laymen to exercise the king's prerogatives and use a bishopric's lands to support their own warriors (vassals). In some cases full proprietary rights over the church's lands and activities were usurped. Even in the least disrupted regions like northern Germany warlords and seigneurs were systematically appropriating churches up until Otto I came to power in 936.
Hence, all across the Carolingian world even in the more stable regions the number of proprietary foundations continued to increase as new churches and monasteries were established between 840 and 1000. These were new establishments were treated as family property. The rights and privileges of the original proprietor are passed along to his heirs. Increasingly after about 900 the economic stress coupled with the disorganized and weakened conditions of the Church hierarchy and church discipline saw many proprietors taking advantage of the competition among the candidates for vacancies to justify entertaining if not simply requiring a little friendly bidding among the candidates. Such "negotiations" (amounting to bribery) reminded the pious of Simon Magus' attempted purchase of the powers of the Holy Spirit from Peter as recorded in Acts 8:18-24. Hence they called such trafficking in church offices "simony".
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Royal investiture rights over all long-established and strategically located church posts were among the powers readily usurped by the king's political underlings in the course of the ninth century. In those regions where strength and stability of the ruler was most obvious, as in Alemannia after 936, royal investiture was one of the hallmarks of royal effective sovereignty. It was more than a simple ritual of royal power, by the end of the tenth century it was one of the very essential foundations of it. Bishops, archbishops and abbots of royal monasteries often served as key royal agents in their respective locations. Without the services of these clergy the state would be administratively crippled. It goes without saying that these important clergy simply must have an unquestioned loyalty to the king and be the very best qualified people available.
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Tithes continued to be collected as an annual tax in kind throughout the whole realm. At first the tithe was to be brought by individuals to the clergy of the local baptismal or cathedral churches, presumably to the church where they confessed and worshiped. Soon all types of churches including the non-baptismal churches were receiving tithes. Then before the middle of the ninth century monasteries began to claim tithes because of their chapels, but the priests who held services there probably got no more than a fraction of it. Eventually it became customary for monasteries to receive tithes even if they had no chapel.
In those cases where proprietors were in control of churches, the proprietors considered the tithes as part of the income they were free to appropriate for themselves. It soon became customary to pay the tithe directly to the proprietor rather than to the clergyman. Some bishops tried to divert all the tithes to themselves. Rather than allowing the clergy in the baptismal churches to retain their share, some bishops spent the money to build palatial apartments for themselves. Indications are that even in those areas of Europe where government remained relatively effective, the tithe was so frequently diverted from its intended use that the lower clergy continued to be prisoners of unrelenting poverty.
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We will reserve our examination of the Monastic reaction to the crisis to a later essay. Changes in those areas where the political, economic, and social break-up was most extensive were extensive. Clergy often were only a little less violent and self-serving than the warrior society they ministered to. Clergy in those parts of Europe where stable government was more effective in preserving law and order generally were more disciplined and moral than in those areas where the erosion of sovereignty had progressed with greatest effect. Nevertheless, the vita canonica as an institution for the secular clergy had everywhere disappeared by 900. Also, there was an increase in clerical marriage and concubinage. The records of the Synod of Pavia in 1022 reveal that the majority of the clergy in northern Italy were married. A few cases of a bishop's son succeeding him as if the office were hereditary can also be cited. There are cases where the bishops became vassals and hence gave both aid and counsel to a local warlords. Remember aid is service in arms as a soldier and counsel is obedience to the majority vote of the vassals' assembly. There is likewise a case of an archbishop attempting to elevate himself to the rank of patriarch over the other bishops in a region.
Several "worst case" scenarios emerge from the record. Several cases of individuals serving as clergy--even as bishops--without benefit of ordination or recognition by regional clergy to say nothing of having respectable qualifications. This was possible only because the proprietor was able to override or manipulate such customary, hopefully canonical, election procedures. This also explains how the sickly and mentally deficient relatives of the lay proprietor might be found holding key clerical offices. Where the unscrupulous proprietor had no "unemployed and good-for-nothing" relatives to fill his vacant posts he was all the more tempted to accept bribes or payments from those seeking appointment. The best example of how disruptive and intrusive the role of a proprietor could be and how turbulent and precarious the office of bishop could be as a result comes from the history of the Church of Rome after 875. This sad story will be recounted below in the section on the Papacy.
Some changes in the period were innovative. The Chorbishops, or assistants to the bishops in large dioceses, were eliminated as a result of Church action in Carolingia in 845 but not until the next century did they disappear in Alemannia. In their place were priests who held the title archdeacon. Larger dioceses would have an archdeacon for each county in the diocese.
Little is known about actual conditions in the churches in England during this period, beyond the clear indications of increasing violence and upheaval during the Danish invasions. Illiteracy appears to have been widespread there among the clergy.
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The lack of strong government in Italy after the death of Emperor Louis II in 875 subjected the church leaders to pressures similar to those elsewhere in Europe. Increasing lay influence over the papacy at Rome led Roman Catholic historians to label the period from c. 900-955 as the "pornocracy", literally, rule by prostitutes. The following summary of well attested facts provides all sorts of examples of corruption. Please remember that while these examples are from the history of the papacy, they are certainly not unique. They were not unlike events and pressures many other European bishops in the early tenth century experienced.
Pope Formosius (891-896) was poisoned because his political support of the Carolingian line was unpopular with the dominant Roman bosses. His successor, Boniface VI, lasted 15 days in 896. Pope Stephen VI (896-97) had Formosius' body exhumed, tried before a church court, defrocked, cut in pieces and thrown in the Tiber River. Stephen was ambushed in his own church and thrown in jail. A few weeks later hired killers strangled him. Pope Romanus survived less than 4 months in 897. His successor, Theodore II, managed to die a natural death after 20 days. The next two Popes, John IX (898-900) and Benedict IV (900-903) seem to have had uneventful and relatively long reigns. Pope Leo V (903) was thrown in prison by the usurper, Christopher (903-904), who got himself duly elected to the office apparently while Leo V was still incumbent.
At this point the local political boss in Rome, Theophylact Senator, and his wife, Theodora Senatrix, begin to intervene in the course of events. Theodora picked Sergius III whom Theophylact established as Pope (904-911). Sergius promptly had Christopher arrested and put in prison. In preparation for his consecration Sergius is alleged to have arranged for the murder of both Leo V and Christopher. Ecclesiastical gossip in Italy alleged that Theodora's youngest daughter, Marozia, became Pope Sergius III's mistress. Marozia's first marriage took place after Sergius III died. Her husband was Alberic, Duke of Spoleto. Their son Alberic II was born c. 916.
Popes Anastasius III (911-913) and Lando (913-914) seem to have been selected without interference from secular politics, but Pope John X (914-928) was again the choice of Theodora Senatrix. He had been archbishop of Ravenna before becoming Pope. He was an outstanding Pope in his day. He arranged an alliance between the Byzantines, Alberic of Spoleto, and Berengar of Friuli, which resulted in the expulsion of the Muslim raiders from central Italy. Pope John led the Roman military contingent in person.
Theophylact and Theodora having died, Marozia, now a widow, returned to Rome with her young son, Alberic II, and took control c. 926. She married the Marquis Guy of Tuscany, but he died in 930-31. Marozia was accused of having Pope John murdered in 928 in order to secure the election of her current favorite, Pope Leo VI (928-29). Marozia's next selection was Stephen VIII (929-931). Meanwhile her young son, Alberic II, was taking over the political reins of Rome. Marozia next brought forward a totally unknown 21-year-old and had him consecrated as John XI (931-935). The Italian ecclesiastical gossip network identified John XI as Marozia's son by pope Sergius III.
In 932 Hugh of Arles married Marozia, but Alberic II drove the couple from the city. John XI was temporarily imprisoned, but released and allowed to resume his office when he agreed to totally refrain from politics and deal with "spiritual matters" only. Alberic II then appointed Leo VII (936-939), Stephen VIII (939-942), Marinus (942-46), and Agapetus II (946-955). When Alberic II died in 954 his seventeen-year-old son, Octavian, took his place as head of the city. The next year the eighteen year old Octavian himself was consecrated as Pope John XII (955-963). Octavian/John XII was accused of almost every moral vice and political intrigue known to man. He was deposed by a Synod of Roman churchmen assembled under the watchful eye of Emperor Otto I in 963. Bishop Liudprand of Cremona, the scandalmonger par excellence, reports that he died some time later of over-exertion in making love. The synod of 963 also choose John XII's successor--an elderly layman who then advanced through the ranks and orders of the clergy in a single day--Leo VIII (963-964).
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